Javiera Arnillas

Javiera Alejandra Arnillas Cartagena (born 1995) is a Peruvian actress, model and Afro-Peruvian trans activist.

Early life and education
Born as Javier in Chincha Alta, she went to Lima in 1996 with her brother and lived at her uncle's home in Jesús María. It was there that she spent her childhood until 2002, when she moved to Spain for a year with her family. Upon their return, they all settle in Lima, where she continues to attend the San Felipe school, housed in the same-named residential community.

Despite initial confusion and concerns about her appearance, she felt a strong sexual and physical attraction to her peers, which affirmed her desire to appear completely feminine. Although her family was hesitant at first due to fears of public rejection and violence, they supported her throughout her journey. Javi never considered changing her name, feeling content with being called "Javi," and aspires to afford genital reassignment surgery in Thailand.

In 2016, the decision was taken to undergo a physical alteration. Subsequently, he started an endocrinologist-recommended hormonal therapy that prevented the production of testosterone. In addition, he got estrogen. She avoids discussing surgical procedures, her love life, nor the name that appears on her passport or ID to this day. She feels that sharing such knowledge would not helping the situation.

She attends the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru's (PUCP) Faculty of Performing Arts, which was the first university to formally acknowledge the freedom to gender identification. This came about as a result of her involvement in the Reforma Trans campaign, which called for the government to recognise transgender students' identities. The PUCP student organisation that got the University Council to agree to allow transgender students to use their chosen names—rather than their surnames.

Career
Film director Wesley Verástegui made proposal for Arnillas in 2017 to star in the film, Sin vagina, me marginan. She agreed to play "Barbie," the lead character in the show alongside transgender activist singer Marina Kapoor. She also applied to be a model for the 2018 Lima Fashion Week (LifWeek), which takes place from 23 to 27 October 2017.

Arnillas later appeared in the cast of El niño que no quería matar in 2020. She was a model and beauty queen who competed in the Miss International Queen Perú pageant in 2020. As an activist, she has supported a change.org petition calling for the Peruvian Congress to discuss a gender identification bill that the legislative body's Family Commission proposed in March 2021. This allowed her to represent Peru in the Miss International Queen 2021 competition, which took place in Thailand in 2022. Un romance singular, in which she starred, had its debut in 2022.

Awards and recognitions

 * Miss International Queen Perú (2020)